Is anyone else a bit uneasy about the (sudden) need for a computer vision engineer at this stage? I’m getting a bit antsy with the sudden revelation that came out recently about not actually shipping out beta units as we were told as well as a bit more opacity and time between with updates.
Still holding strong and very excited. Just a bit antsy.
I’m not. After watching MANY videos of the other units that are available in the “home” laser cutter market, this product should be a big improvement and with most of the “work” being done in the cloud, you would hope that any software improvements made along the way will be available to you as well… time will tell if we all have made a good decision or not.
Cheers!
They could be wanting to add new features, are planning for the future, or even wanting to speed up production on this to give them the ability to do one of the prior stated options. As this is THE big feature that is changing the laser game and what is giving glowforge its power in the market, they are going to need to have this done before so many other things can be moved on.
I was just asking for some new capabilities the other day in regards to object detection. maybe they want to get a jump on that!? haha
Either way, they are shipping before june still as mentioned in the shipping post Dan made last night, so I dont see it as an issue. I see it as a wise move and maybe even a good thing. Maybe we will all get our glowforges sooner
No.
They are a small company that is growing. As you grow you add specialists and the cameras are a key part of the system. This is a result of selling $28 million in 30 days. They have the money to develop features they couldn’t do if they’d sold $3 million or even $10 million.
Worry when they advertise for a Feng Shui expert or a gourmet chef specializing in Tibetan cuisine.
Deviation from the projected development time line should be anticipated. This product doesn’t exist yet in its final iteration.
My perception is many expect delivery as if it were just out of stock with arrival scheduled on a specific date For distribution.
From what I have seen, @dan does a pretty good job predicting the future with his crystal ball.
Inclusion of cameras for scanning is a huge innovation, and it should be no surprise that as design progresses, capabilities of that feature would naturally be realized and evolve - presenting a need for expertise to achieve its full potential.
It tells me that our Glowforge team is on top of their game and are actively pursuing feature development by investing in resources necessary to present us with the best product they can manage.
On the contrary, it doesn’t worry me in the slightest. It speaks to astute management, which I personally find very reassuring.
I absolutely agree with you on that. I actually read into the position as more an investment in Glowforge’s long term growth and development. One of the really nice things about cloud software and processing is that any time GF comes out with a new feature we all get access to it. Once the physical unit is up to a certain standard where the majority of hardware-software communication bugs are worked out and the units are shipped I feel as though the Glowforge would be an ever growing and developing machine.
Essentially our 1.0 unit is also our 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4… unit thanks to the miracle that is updateable software. Not looking forward to the problems that also arise out of that, but with every new addition to GF’s expert team, the more smoothly that will work
so yeah, no worries here either
To continue the chorus: Completely expected. Having a person who knows little more than making a computer understand a camera would have made no sense with a lean team on a small startup. Lacking one makes no sense on a tens of millions dollar company.
We all just transformed Glowforge from the former to the latter.
And on the shipping note: This is not sudden. It is exactly what the company has always been saying, now made VERY clear. Notice that you can apply to be “Private” or “Public” beta user, and that there are no “Public” beta in the wild. Glowforge has never said that any beta is indeed out and about, but has clearly stated repeatedly that no public beta is in the wild. The heavy hint would be that there ARE beta units out there in private hands (under tight NDA). The forum regulars have pointed this out a lot, and it has been translated by the lurkers and semi-actives to mean that beta is completely operational. Those people then see the “no public beta” as a contradiction, when it is not.
this is my “semi-actively lurking” face… 
I’m not worried. They’re doing the Tesla approach:
Get a good, solid piece of hardware out on the road with capable subsystems (Tesla put distance sensors all around their cars; Glowforge put two cameras in), and then push a software upgrade out to everyone to add Ludicrous Mode, Auto Drive and automatic emergency braking as a software iteration once it’s perfected.
You either love or hate the methodology. It all depends on your expectations. Do I expect the cameras to work 100% in every use-case when it comes out? Probably not… but I have faith that the GF team will perfect it during an upcoming iteration.
The first members of a new squadron in the Navy, or the first crew aboard a new ship are known as “plank owners”, and enjoy that title life long.
We who helped fund this project coming out of the hole enjoy the satisfaction of being a driving force in its development as @jacobturner said.
Those who gambled on Dan’s vision and invested in his dream first, are the plank owners of this project.
The early members who have been instrumental and inspirational in their contributions of skill and ideas - along with their money, deserve a descriptive title like plank owners.
It doesn’t sail but it cuts, so how about Blade Runners? 
That reminds me of this xkcd comic. 
Hahah… love it. Yes, that’s exactly my viewpoint. (and yes, I’m also a Linux (ab)user…) 
I’d rather not kill robots and then ironically discover through symbolic references that I might be one, thank you very much 
How about a patriotic reference like “The Founding Forgers”? 
I had to share that with the tech guy at work lol
Having a person who knows little more than making a computer understand a camera would have made no sense with a lean team on a small startup.
When one of the big selling features of your product is it’s ability to “understand a camera”, having somebody with substantial CV experience would have made sense even for a tiny Glowforge. Possibly more sense, since they could do more impressive things and further differentiate themselves from the competition
And why would they be capable of “little more” than CV? Many are talented programmers and CV wizards
Glowforge may have been privately hunting for some time already, or maybe they already have semi-decent CV programmers, or some other mitigating factor (how much can anybody really read into a single job advert?) but personally I would be a bit surprised if they actually had left it this late to pursue proper help with CV. Software can always be improved later as @dan_berry says, but if you make a hardware mistake that will forever cripple your software’s capabilities, it’s better to find that out from an expert before you set too much in stone
An issue of the limitations in text based discourse I would say. I agree, that it will be a rare bird who knows nothing but CV. It would also be impossible to imagine the current team does not contain someone who is proficient in CV.
But finding that rare bird who lives, breathes, and sleeps nothing but CV is what I imagine such a job announcement at this point to be. They want the lead for building innovative capability. They already have “Can use camera” down, now they want “Can Camera-fu”
I love that everyone’s so excited about a job posting.
We’ve been hiring since the day we incorporated and will continue to do so. We have an immensely talented small team delivering on what we’ve promised, but we have even more plans for your Glowforges once we’ve shipped them. We think this machine can be built on for many years to come, and growing our company lets us do that ever better.
It occurred to me that you both know and are yourselves the sort of people we would most like to work with - so I decided to post one job here per “week”. I’m putting week in air-quotes because it’ll actually be “as often as I think of it”. If you can’t stand the suspense, they’re all where they’ve always been at glowforge.com/jobs.
As for this one specifically - we’ve got CV brainpower already, but we’d like lots more. We have so many ideas in mind for those cameras…